While simulations show that snowballing is no longer such a problem as before, I will nonetheless sum up some solution posts and give some IMHO about topic.
I guess a typical wargoal could be to take a specific castle or city. Fabricating the claim could be done automatically by the AI factions randomly on neighbor factions taking 30 days to do. Claims could also be given to claimants for king throne etc (giving claim on whole Kingdom maybe or capital region) for the player they could do some action or mission to generate the claims.
On peace treaty it should be possible to take more land than the claim, but then all other factions in the game will get a free claim to take all your land from you (making all factions go to war with a faction which takes more land) also all cities and such make no tax/income before a peace treaty is signed. After a peace treaty there will be a 30 days truce (Or longer depending on how much is taken)
That sounds interesting, but I am afraid it will work much worse in this game, than in Crusader Kings II.
1. Feasts and Peace.
2. Resurrecting fallen nations.
3. Introduce Rebellions asap in Early Access.
4. Have multiple weaker nations declare war on the strongest until it is made slightly weaker, then peace time.
5. Make Campaign AI prioritise defence rather than offence.
6. Have Campaign AI focus on raiding more when on the offence, instead of capturing castles/towns constantly, make raiding more profitable.
Make raiding great again! This will also naturally slow down the pace of the campaign.
7. Campaigns should be able to go on indefinitely with factions rising, falling, and should always have multiple factions on the campaign at the same time.
8. Lords should gather in the Capital of the factions for votes on kingdom issues. Thank you
@Sithrain
9. Reinforce all garrisons.
1. I like the Feast idea, but I do not think that they should have relation with peace. Having a little stop for around a day for the conqueror army with interactions and relation upgrades between lords is fine.
2-3. I think the fallen kingdoms should fall completely first, not linger around the map with poor ruler captured by looters. That clan should be regular clan after that, not a kingdom. And after that some clan (maybe that) as any other clan can plan rebellion. But that is not as much about stopping the snowballing, more about forming some new factions after one kingdom dominates, and has some internal struggle.
4. That is more what I think should work, together with 9 - better stationary defences.
5. As of now, armies pretty much try to stop sieges, which is good.
7. That is close to 2-3, I am not sure that should be a constant struggle, only when there are some internal problems (which could be caused by player). When player conquers all the lands, it should be possible to maintain it, if good relations and balance would be skillfully maintained.
8. That would be a pain IMHO.
Link to the original Steam Discussion:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2615...1390557/?tscn=1585991375#c2144217924385093276
1.AI Agressiveness
2.AI Lord Loyalty
3.Lacking diplomatic options
4.Towns and castles are too easy to take and not very well defended most of the time
5.Not enough Recruits
Or: Make the AI cheat again. And NOBODY wants that, do we ?
I think 1-4 is the points.
Especially 2. In my playthrough all the lords switched to the bigger faction, and that was exactly what caused snowball effect.
What can the devs. do?
1. Reduce the aggressive behavior
2. Increase garrison size
3. Insert some stamina of sieging, so they don't conquer the land too quickly
4. Smaller factions should make peace and fight against bigger ones more often
5. Give some lords a small chance to escape after they lost a fight
6. After escaping from prison lords should spawn in their castle with a small number of troops (20-30).
I like 1, 2 and 4, but I absolutely do not want to see 5 and 6.
I had to execute everyone I capture because of that.
1. New Feature: War exhaustion
2. New Feature: Faction becomes tributery of another faction
3. New Feature: Rebellion
4. New Feature: Assimilation
5. New Feature: Broken Stability Trait
6. New Feature: Civil War
1. I do not think it will fit the game well. When you have troops dead and wounded, when bandits are all around your villages while you away - that is War exhaustion. It is already in the game.
2. I think that may be too complicated and will not help much, it is close to clans of that factions switching side, like they loved to do at EA launch.
3, 6. Yep, that may be interesting after one kingdom prevails and lords are not happy.
4, 5. That seems complicated too, there is already loyalty, security, I think that is enough for "assimilation" tuning.
I think:
- 1- Casus belli
- 2- War fatigue among the attacking kingdom population
- 3- Civil wars when a kingdom has too many settlements or clans or too much war fatigue, or war with no casus belli
- 4- Alliances against excessively strong kingdoms
- Did I say civil wars, when a kingdom becomes too big? That would be great.
- Possibility of rebel factions, in general, many more internal battles: bandits who take castles, rebellion of bandits, peasants....
Valid points, similar to above.
1 - "Infamy" mechanism, so factions which "blob" too quickly are increasingly more likely to be attacked by other factions.
2 - Troops in reserve at castles, so a lord can pull 20-40 men out to replace losses, with a priority to begin replacing those reserves as soon as new recruits are hired.
3 - Fighting to the last man was rarely ever done. Historically, most armies fled after only 5-10% casualties, or less, and most casualties were inflicted while running away, although that wouldn't be much fun in a video game. Most armies in the game should rout and regroup (re-appear) back at the nearest friendly town or castle after roughly 50% casualties (more or less, depending on morale and leadership), and half of the wounded should leave with the defeated army, rather than have every battle continue to the complete extermination of one side or the other.
4 - Higher priority given to defending nearby towns and castles, or those of friends, with a much greater willingness to enter and join the battle for the defense. It's currently too easy to take a castle, and the attackers don't suffer enough losses to prevent sieging taking a second castle almost immediately afterwards.
5 - Defender advantages in auto-resolve to make taking fortified holdings considerably more costly (2:1 or 3:1 losses for the attackers if equal numbers), even if successful. The victor of such an assault should be in no shape to immediately go and take another, requiring a period of recovery and recruitment back up to former numbers.
1. Yep.
3. I am not sure if you are holed up in a surrounded castle under siege you have a good chances to retreat and regroup...
So in my opinion it should work like that...
1. Lords should not get armies spawned out of nowhere, it should take time to recruit troops and train them. And it should take more gold to prepare an army. Enough gold so that not everyone will manage to gather big army. Especially elite units. Units should gain good experience during large-scale battles, but they die too, and with passive training it is much slower process.
2. Militia at castles and towns replenish as usual (more simple process than army). And while lord armies are not so big, they will need to do the siege: make garnison starve, make holes in walls and siege engines.
3. While the siege is in progress opposing lords gather and try to help defenders, especially if they have good relations with the owner.
4. If these helping lords have not enough numbers to face attacker in the field, they can stand besides the siege camp and strike to the back during siege battle at not convenient for attacker moment.
5. Even when siege is succesfull, attacker is likely to take significant casualties. After that it is unlikely that the same army will do another siege right away. They can have a feast too and try to heal wounded troops at the new keep.
6. Attacked kingdom is likely to have an army nearby too (which was headed to defend), and while the castle/town still has no militia, maybe even destroyed walls, attacker will be at disadvantage while trying to keep the new fief.
7. If one kingdom nonetheless will take several fiefs in one war (and generally become too vast), other kingdoms should see that as opportunity to punish that kingdom and take some land for themselves.
8. When kingdom has its attacking forces depleted, it will seek peace. And will want that peace until it has strong army with nothing to do again.
9. Lords should be much more loyal, needing to pass a requirement for them to even speak about treachery: like bad relations with king, having no fiefs, while other clans of the same influence have several. Lords should be despleased when new clan enters the kingdom and especially (with influence still low) being granted a fief. New clan with decent rank will not like to join a kingdom without being granted a fief. That will make it more difficult for too vast kingdoms to increase their attacking capabilities.
10. If clan leaves the kingdom, it loses its fiefs, unless it is rebellion. Rebel should be at war with everyone at initial state and should make peace. Other clans can join the rebellion with their fiefs at the moment it occurs. Later they will have to make another rebellion or lose their fiefs (if any).
The main point, I guess, is that attacking force is lower than defending (lords have to recruit and train troops, like player does). And that over-expansion is punished by other kingdoms.
I believe it should make every siege an achievement big enough to have a feast and make a peace after. Without that being hardcoded irrational action.
And that does not require any major changes to the game too.
I hope my feedback will be of some use~
